AGES OF ANIMALS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIX, Issue 14925, 24 February 1912, Page 5 (Supplement)

AGES OF ANIMALS.

LONGEVITY OF FISHES.

With the great majority of the larger animals the age limit is, according to .a writer in the St. James's Gazette, below 30 years, and often above 20. This applies to dogs and horses, asses and zebras, domestic cattle, giraffes, lions,'tigers, hippopotami; swine, and the large mammals generally. Sheep and deer fall somewhat below this level : rats, mice, and rabbits very considerably below it; while elephants often greatly surpass it. There have been elephants in India known to have been at l work for man tor more than 80 years, and centenarian elephants-are comparatively numerous. Nevertheless, the average records, of menagerie animals place 30 or 40 as the normal age limit, and it is probable that the popular idea of the ages reached by norma! elephants is exaggerated.

Whales have the laugh'on elephants by a very considerable, margin. The kind that supply whalebone are believed to start life with a reasonable .prospect of several centuries of fun before them, provided they aro not cut off in the bud at 150 or „-*>. Water.particularly salt water, seems to conduce to longevity. There are gigantic mussels and oysters ,whoso age is assumed to be comparable only with that of the Capo Verd baobab tree and the big tree of California,, which live for 5000 years. Indeed, there appears no particular reason why mussels should over die, though it is also true that, considering the sort of life a, mussel leads, there seems no particular reason why. it should have ever lived. Sea anemones, again, delicate and sensitive though they may look when we sec them in our rock pools, may attain great age. Sir John Dalyell, a Scottiss naturalist, captured in 1828- a sea anemone of the liver-coloured sort so common around our shores. Its age was then estimated at seven years. It flourished in Edinburgh until 1887, and was just attaining a vigorous and sober maturity when, from some unknown cause, it Mas out off in its prime. Eels have lived in captivity for 60 years; the ago of some venerable salmon has been estimated at 100; carp live to be 150, and there have been pike whose ago was estimated at 200.